Carlos Cámara

Carlos Cámara-Menoyo

Senior Research Software Engineer

@ccamara.scholar.social

@ccamara.scholar.social.ap.brid.gy

Timothy Monteath

Timothy Monteath

Assistant Professor

Timothy.monteath@warwick.ac.uk

@twm.mastodon.sdf.org

Are maps objective?

Map-making

How are maps made?

1. Geodesy

Is what figuring out where things are and how to record them. Focus is on mathematical foundations (coordinates, Earth’s shape).

This was once a huge scientific enterprise, today this is done by satellite and most of us, even very specialist geographers don’t have to think about it very much.

Keywords: precision, geolocation, GPS, LIDAR, coordinates system…

2. Cartogrpahy

Is how we visualize information about things in the world on maps .

The history of cartography is long and detailed, and the question of what was mapped by whom has dramatically shaped the modern world.

Keywords: projections, shapes, size, colour…

Who makes maps?

Governments

Motivation: public service

Official maps

  • Ordnance Survey
  • NASA

Companies

Motivation: Business model.

  • Google, Microsoft, Apple…
  • ESRI, Carto
  • …

Specific, detailed maps, related to their business model.

Individuals!

Motivation: diverse Coverage and precision: diverse

  • OpenStreetMap

Are maps objective?

Each map involves a series of decisions that are anything but objective

Projections

No projection is perfect! Projection is an ‘unsolvable problem’ in that however we do it we are going to end up with some distortion somewhere on our map.

What is included (and what is not!)

OSM Carto: a General Purpose style

OSM Public transport layer

OSM Public transport layer

So what?

All maps are political and anything but neutral:

  • They follow a political agenda
  • Unconcious bias

Either way, they influence/impact other people’s lifes, especially in less privileged/underrepresented population:

  • Origin/Location
  • Gender
  • Sexual orientation…

There’s a long history of maps and power ILLUSTRATIVE MAP HERE?

Our research

Can Digital Goods Be Neutral? Evaluating OpenStreetMap’s equity through participatory data visualisation

Motivation

Use data visualisations to understand whether these decisions had a positive or negative impact in under-represented communities.

OpenStreetMap (OSM)

An OpenStreetMap map of Coventry

OSM is huge!

A graph of OpenStreetMap contributors

A graph of OpenStreetMap features

OSM is everywhere!

Major Sites: Amazon, Apple, Baidu Maps, Facebook, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Wikimedia

Transport: Air France, Alaska Airlines, Deutsche Bahn, Grab, SNCF (French rail agency), Uber Geodata Software and Services: CARTO, Digital Globe, ESRI, Garmin, Mapbox, Telenav

Government: Agence Française de Développement , Government of Brazil, Government of Italy: President’s Office, Police Scotland, US National Park Service, US State Department, USAID, Peace Corps….

What?

  • Is OSM as neutral as it claims to be?
  • How is the notion of neutrality being implemented?
  • How is ‘neutrality’ affecting other, underrepresented demographics?

How?

Participatory research: teaming with GeoChicas and workshops

GeoChicas is a collective of feminist women linked to OpenStreetMap, originally Spanish-speaking, who work for women’s empowerment and the reduction of the gender gap in OpenStreetMap communities and in communities associated with the world of free software and open data.

Co-design visualisation

Image of the dashboard

Workshop on alternative cartography

You are invited!

link: